Jeremayakovka

GOP Debate Questions Journalists Are Too Afraid To Ask

 

10. Chris Wallace: “PC – or Mac?”

9. Byron York: “Kindle – or Nook?”

8. Bret Baier: “Draft – or bottle?”

7. Brian Williams: "Ginger – or Mary Ann?"

6. Wolf Blitzer: “Veronica – or Betty?”

5. Juan Williams: “Janet – or Whitney?”

4. Rachel Maddow: “Madonna – or Gaga?”

3. Anderson Cooper: “Boxers – or briefs?”

2. George Stephanopoulos: “Latex – or lambskin?”

1. Barbara Walters: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?"

Obama As Kitsch

During the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, the worst thing a critic (or more cuttingly, a fellow artist) could say about a work was that it was kitsch -- sentimental, vulgar, and/or pretentious.

One of the blogosphere's bolder take-downs of Obama paints him with that brush:

In the case of Obama, kitsch appeal operates at a heightened advantage, cuing a long-conditioned response in whites inclined toward critical self-examination and conspicuous expressions of tolerance. This practice has always come with an expectation of change, of eventual improvement in relations among the races generally, between blacks and whites specifically.

(H/T larwyn)

Zogby Poll - Many Obama Voters Poorly or Uninformed

The text beneath the asterisks is Zogby poll data copied verbatim from the web site How Obama Got Elected. HOGE's founder, John Ziegler, is making a documentary about the disastrous impact of mainstream media coverage of the recent president election. (See video clip in previous post .)

Related: In an LA Times article today, Peace Action's Executive Director Kevin Martin is "expressing concern" over "so much Obama hero worship."

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512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

# # #

Many Obama Voters Are Like Oakland

There isn't any "there" there. OTOH, here's evidence of the deleterious effects of the mainstream media's objectively biased 2008 election coverage. In their own words: the MSM's giddy boosterism.

Straight Talk With Sarah Palin

I try to keep it so simple by reading the [Constitution of the State of Alaska] and believing in it and living it. I get chided all the time, especially in the campaign. It was funny -  people got so sick and tired of me quoting the Constitution. It's my Bible in governing. It's a simple Constitution. It's short and sweet. It was providential. It was written by very wise minds fifty some years ago. Some of these crafters of our Constitution, they're still alive today. They're my mentors, they're my advisers. I get to meet with these folks and say, "What did you mean by this provision in our Constitution." They get to tell me what they meant and what the intention was and they make so much sense. And if more of our lawmakers knew what it says about equality: inherently it's the people who have the power - it's not the elected officials - it's the people who have the power in Alaska. And when we develop these God-given resources of ours it's to be for the maximum benefit of Alaskans.

- Governor Sarah Palin

Before the election one liberal commenter suggested I was "naive and sentimental" in my support for Sarah Palin. Far from it. Yes, I welcomed her to the ticket and, yes, last week I voted for her. I also had the good fortune to meet one of her former neighbors and constituents from Wasilla. That was a refreshing antidote to the mainstream media's/entertainment industry's/netroots' relentless assault on her character. Much as I feel about Obama, she's lived a great American life; and as Joe Lieberman suggested about Obama in his RNC speech, she may one day make a good national executive. Voters this year decided Obama's chance would come sooner. Fine.

Still, Palin didn't overly impress me in the places where she had to most - her high-profile media interviews and her one debate. In the former, her awkwardness revealed the weaknesses of being merely a regional reformer and not a Machiavellian, cloak-and-dagger operator. In the latter, her winks into the camera were more worrisome, even offensive, than any on-stage knuckle-bumping. What I, and I think many others, would have appreciated would have been more opportunities to hear straight talk from Sarah Palin.

Back in June 2007 Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review sat down for an inquisitive one-on-one with her. The stakes were low then which, sadly, may be why the conversational quality is high. Palin's got a bunch to say about financing Wasilla's sports complex, her critical hindsight about beauty pageants, her conservative principles, her legal perspective (as an executive) on gay marriage and school choice, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and more. Listen to the audio while it's still available.

One of the best questions is near the very end: 

DV: When will you be running for president?
SP: President of the PTA, maybe!... I can't answer that.... Life happens.
DV: So she didn't answer No. OK, great.

Too Much Information

Hey! I don't want to know my president's Secret Service codename. I don't want anybody outside of the Secret Service to know his codename. That's why it's called the Secret Service. Ya dig? From today's Yahoo! Buzz (i.e., Gossip Column, i.e., National Security Leak):

The Secret Service takes a lot of risks for the first family. So it's only fair that the agency gets the honor of coming up with code names for the president-elect and his family. Various sources within the Buzz recently revealed the not-so-secret nicknames.

Mr. Obama will be known as "Renegade" (move over, Lorenzo Lamas). Michelle, a woman of many talents, will be referred to as "Renaissance." Malia Obama's name will be "Radiance," while little sister Sasha's will be "Rosebud."

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Meanwhile, trust-busting President-elect Obama discloses intentionally private details of yesterday's one-on-one meeting with President Bush .... and his privately-financed campaign continues to rake in unprecedented fraudulent online contributions.

Black Democrat Warns Against Unrealistic Expectations

How did this slip under the radar?

In many ways his candidacy kind of exacerbates [the Black community's] problems rather than solves them.
- Dr. Ricky L. Jones, author of What's Wrong With Obamamania?, interviewed earlier this year

An Old Friend's Election Night Thoughts

Last week an old friend sent around a message which describes his experience of watching Barack Obama win the presidential election. It's a special message which offers a unique perspective on this historical moment. It's open-hearted, of course, and also authoritative. Whatever political differences we may have (cordial, spirited, or both) are set aside during this great moment in our nation's history.

The thing is, when we were very young teenagers, I don't remember Adam and I talking politics much. Mostly we showed up for classes, diligently handed in homework, and played lots of hallway handball. Our respective reflections on what this election brings to bear arrived in different ways, at different times.

With Adam's permission, I am posting portions of his message here.

* * *

Dear friends and family,

I have been, and remain, overwhelmed by this election. A special thanks to those who joined us at our home that night, and many more who joined us by phone or in spirit....

[W]hen CNN put up the enormous picture of him with "Barack Obama projected winner and 44th President of the United States!" All of a sudden, it hit me: we have a black President and First Family!! Colleen found her soprano range, and our guests erupted in the loudest most raucous celebration we've ever had.

This made me think about my grandfather, elected into a segregated Capitol cafeteria with Congressmen who refused to sit next to him and supposed colleagues who insisted on sabotaging him. I thought of my grandmother, refused a concert at Constitution Hall, and then slammed by the IRS for telling off the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Her biography is now on Amazon, and an article in today's Washington Post mentions this experience: -- see page 2 "Fifty years later...")

I thought about the experience of my parents, a mixed-race couple in the late 60s and early 70s who faced many challenges with the support of some great friends. (They married in DC less than two years after the Supreme Court's ruling in the Loving case struck down Virginia's law against interracial marriage.) It's so comforting to think that when people see a similar couple today, they'll think of the parents of our new President.

I thought about the Adam Clayton Powell Academy which I visited in south side Chicago last week as Principal for a Day. Though located in a dangerous neighborhood (the cab driver who took me there told me I should fear for my safety in that area), most of the school was absolutely jubilant on the eve of the election of a President of the United States who is one of their own in several ways. However, one second grade class kept asking questions like "Why do black people and white people hate each other?" "Why do people shoot each other?" I wonder, what must they be thinking now, after seeing the election and the celebrations which followed?

I thought of the 13-year-old Haitian boy named Marc who joined my tutoring group in a Dorchester school seventeen years ago because a friend dragged him in. The atmosphere of violence was so pervasive back then, he asked me, "Why should I work hard and study in school, when I don't even know if I'm going to be around in six months?" I was so completely shocked, I don't even remember my reply. His story has a happy ending: he kept coming (saying he felt "addicted to this program -- I don't really like it, but I keep coming back"), and the attention and tutoring sent his attitude and grades rocketing upward. Most important, he started to think about the years ahead instead of merely days and weeks.

How many young boys like him, and for that matter how many young girls, will start off at a much better place when thinking about their future because of this election? This thought brought tears to my eyes....

It truly is a great time, for the nation, and for the world.

With love,
Adam

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Obama's Election Heralds America's "Long, Slow Descent Into The Third World"

It's been going on for some time now. In any case, what he said:

[T]he US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue....

The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world. Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

Global Caliphate Forces Anticipate, Interpret Obama's First Iraq Moves

From the Islamic Republic of Iran's Press TV: Taji Mustafa of the international, pro-global caliphate Hizb ut-Tahrir Party of the United Kingdom (!) is trying to cool somebody's jets in this recent, post-American election commentary.

Says Mustafa: Barack Obama is not Vladimir Lenin. He's not a revolutionary who has come with a new system to Washington DC, planning to overthrow the current system and turn everything upside-down.

Who? What rabble? To what revolutionary squads, cadres, kooks, and thugs is Mustafa speaking?

Thankfully, Jamie Kirchick  articulated the pro-American perspective. Note very well, in the final minutes, the confrontation between Kirchick and Mustafa. Kirchick, whom I respect for going on camera there, was way too polite (calling him, "Sir") - he should have tore Mustafa's (rhetorical) head off and spit his (rhetorical) brains into the camera....

(H/T Jamie)

Don't Join The Swarm

Michael Ledeen's thoughts on the mainstream media and Election 2008:

For years now, most thoughtful Americans have known they were being misled by the MSM.  But they didn’t know exactly where to go to get the real news.  Over time, many of them learned to read blogs, to listen to talk radio, and to read the few good journalists who still believe they should report, and let the people decide.  It’s only natural that the Dems should want to shut down these outlets and those reporters, and I think that’s going to be a very big battle in the very near future, whoever wins tomorrow.

It follows from all this that there’s another thing that has my dander flying:  the snooty treatment of Palin.  It’s as if that old New Yorker cover–the one that shows Manhattan occupying most of the map of the United States, then the Mississippi River and fly-over country in a small strip, then San Francisco and Los Angeles in a larger area–has now become the template for all proper thinkers.  I’m sure lots of folks in fly-over country are enraged by this, but many others want to have a seat at the table, want to join the celebrities, want to be thought of as serious thinkers.  And so they join the swarm.

American exceptionalism rests upon independent thinking, pride in community and heritage, and disdain for ivory tower intellectuals combined with admiration for self-help and achievement.  My greatest fear is that these values are going to be trashed over and over again the next few years, and we will have to fight it very fiercely.

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Professor Ledeen, whom (along with his Anbar Province/Marine vet son) I had the privilege of meeting last summer at a San Francisco luncheon, is definitely a "neoconservative" - when asked whether the Iraq invasion was (perhaps?) a mistake, he replied: Yes. We should have invaded Iran.

Reliably Conservative Pundit "Gets" Obama's Deep Appeal To Blacks; Harlem Reunites; Bush Speechwriter Hails "My President"

There is more than one prize on which to fix our eyes.

Chicagoan Rick Moran, author of the Right Wing Nuthouse blog, attended the Grant Park Election Night Party and saw up close the unsprung emotions Obama's victory brought to many black people who also attended:

I suppose I got caught up in the emotion of the night due almost exclusively to the genuine and copious tears of black Americans. The ones I spoke to and interviewed were nearly speechless with joy. With a start, I realized something that had escaped me all these long months of writing and thinking about this race. For many African-Americans, this election was a spiritual event, something that transcended the corporeal and brought to mind ancestral yearnings and desires for freedom.

For perhaps many blacks, Obama is the word made flesh -- the redemption of the promise in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." The small sample of blacks I interviewed all spoke of the shattering of barriers, the hope that an Obama presidency would translate into a more just society, and the belief that for them personally, their lives would never be the same.

This is a very good thing. It's a very good thing for any white man to notice, and in particular for this one to notice. The longtime Chicagoan apparently hasn't spent much time on the South Side. (That's not an accusation, just an observation.) More importantly, he's a conservative. And conservatives need to be curious about the victorious opposition - out of respect for their humanity as well as for fine-tuning our strategy.

There are piles of reasons to hold President-elect Obama's feet to the fire. To name three: his shady online fundraising, his (or rather, the MSM's and certain institutions') refusal to make all sorts of personal records public, and the highly questionable meaning of his being welcomed into office by some of America's sworn enemies. Those are questions of character and leadership. The fact of his election, however, is another matter altogether.

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* UPDATES *

Rick reads Rahm

Harlem-based writer Sekou says 125th Street "was like standing in the midst of a massive family reunion as all of them found out that they had hit the lottery at the same time."

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson provides historical context independent of the leftwing, Democratic Party narrative (which typically omits Republican ("The Party of Lincoln") advances for blacks): This presidency in particular should be a source of pride even for those who do not share its priorities. An African-American will take the oath of office blocks from where slaves were once housed in pens and sold for profit. He will sleep in a house built in part by slave labor, near the room where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation with firm hand. He will host dinners where Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 entertained the first African-American to be a formal dinner guest in the White House; command a military that was not officially integrated until 1948. Every event, every act, will complete a cycle of history. It will be the most dramatic possible demonstration that the promise of America – so long deferred – is not a lie. I suspect I will have many substantive criticisms of the new administration, beginning soon enough. Today I have only one message for Barack Obama, who will be our president, my president: Hail to the chief..

"The United States of Audacity"

Overheard In A Bar In Oakland CA, Election Night 2008

Southern California is known as "Northern Mexico." That's why Obama won California. We're here. Deal with it! (pause) Hey, we're Americans, too. (pause) Just kiddin'! April Fool's, bro!! HaHaHaHaHaHAAAAAAH!!!

Fox News Captures The Significance Of Obama's Election

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I can't think of another country in the world where you would have a significant minority that was once so maligned and so oppressed finally have one of its sons rise to this level. This is - you know, I don't care how you feel about him politically - on some level you have to say, "This is America at its grandest." The potential, the possibility - and what it says for our children, black and white - the image of Barack Obama and those little girls in the Rose Garden in these years to come I think is just stunning.
Agreed, Juan. Agreed.

"Now reality must intervene."
Agreed there, too, Jacob.

Forest, Meet Trees

The Republican brand may be "tarnished," John McCain definitely is "tarnished" (as in finished), but through it all conservatism sparkles: Kevin McCullough predicted Obama's ascension 23 months ago. Five decisive factors: raging liberals, disgusted conservatives, exhausted moderates, energized blacks, gullible evangelicals. Read it all.

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More: Two red-blooded, blue-state residents (one Christian, one Jewish) don't need Weathermen to know which way the wind blows. Read "President Fraud."

The Old Man And The (Shallow Blue) Sea

* Top Post - SCROLL DOWN for latest posts *

Maybe the McCain campaign can't afford a 30-minute infomercial. That's OK. Earlier this year McCain foreign policy adviser, historian Niall Ferguson, delivered a 30-minute address on behalf of his candidacy. Then Ferguson led a golden, 15-minute Q&A. John McCain boils down to: Electability, Economy, Iraq.

Just one highlight (22:10): We are heading into some pretty choppy economic water. You know, some people say the financial crisis is receding.... This is a delusion. The most recent numbers that I saw from Credit Suisse on future mortgage foreclosures are truly terrifying. A recession is in its preliminary stages that I believe will be more severe than anything that we have seen since the 1970s [this, back on April 28]. But for some pretty spectacular footwork by Ben Bernanke I would have been saying the 1930s, and not the 1970s there.

But the Democrats can't wait to make things worse! [Ferguson's emphasis] It's an absolutely abysmal moment to be contemplating electing these people. Here's why. Obama is, at heart, a New Deal regulator. He cannot wait to increase regulation on one of the most dynamic sectors of the American economy.... [H]e is in fact the reincarnation of Roosevelt, not Kennedy.

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John McCain - America's Fifth Lost Man

I don't think about John McCain, because he's part of the old world, the dead America.
- The rapper Nas, “Q&A Nas,” Rolling Stone, July 10-24, 2008.
 

A post at Gay Patriot yesterday speculated that the mainstream media has largely accepted Obama's life-narrative and worldviews because they figure this is their shot to be a part of history. Certainly that's been the heady message which Obama's supporters have internalized. They're so sure of it, they can't imagine anything else coming close. My comment to that post said as much.

That said, it's been a GOP truism that Obama can't be beaten on image, and instead can be beaten only on issues, facts, character. Obama is an extreme liberal (not "post-partisan"); Obama is a ruthless and tainted, Chicago-bred machine pol (not an "idealist"); Obama not only enjoys the enthusiastic support of most of the world's "Jamal the Plumbers," he enjoys (and occasionally cultivates) support from the anti-American, anti-liberal, and anti-Zionist demagogues who rule them (hence, he lacks " judgment"). All of the above are objectively true, and have been amply demonstrated - by conservative bloggers generally, of course, rather than by the mainstream media.

But what if John McCain's presidential bid were just as historic as Barack Obama's? Shouldn't anyone coming so far to gain a major party nomination deserve to be esteemed on that merit alone? What if John McCain - the life-narrative of John McCain - were upheld, admired, revered even (as his Democratic endorser, Lynn Forester de Rothschild declared on CNN)? What if John McCain's life were already historic? What if a John McCain presidency fit squarely in a great and already-established American historic tradition, one which should be apparent to all Americans?

The lost story of this presidential election is that John McCain's life and potential presidency already are historic. Sadly, however, what makes them so are not on the tip of people's tongues. They should be. Our media and cultural powerbrokers hardly see this as worthy of mention, let alone worthy of inquiry, admiration, and cause for pause and reflection. These people are not even capable of conceiving of McCain's virtues, I venture. (When his age is mentioned it's as a liability exclusively, not as a source of wisdom and moderation.) So few of today's cultural powerbrokers - including his opponent - have ever risked anything close to what John McCain risked (and lost) to earn them. Risked not just for his country, but for another, far-off country. For them to conceive of John McCain's virtues, and then to inform the public of them would be highly inconvenient. It would get in the way of their being a part of the election of Barack Obama.

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It wasn't always that way, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Curiously, the following excerpts from a Thomas Wolfe short story, "The Four Lost Men," shed light on this situation. The story appears (in its abridged version) in the collection From Death to Morning. (Click here for discussion of the original, long version.) Set in June 1917, shortly after the US had entered WWI, Wolfe contrasts his 16 year-old sensitivities to his aged father's undying esteem for post-bellum Republican presidents - all of whom were veterans of the American Civil War. Wolfe's special power in this tale is to imagine these men's minds, not as elder statesmen, but as young wartime leaders passionately enamored with life and death, with duty and nation, with hope and wonder and agony and loss.

The lessons, concerns, and even obsessions which Wolfe visits are as timely today as they are undying - just like the historic life of John McCain. Here's just one excerpt. Please click through and read them all in sequence.

[My father] spoke then with familiar memory of the lost Americans – the strange, lost, time-far, dead Americans, the remote, voiceless, and bewhiskered faces of the great Americans, who were more lost to me than [ancient] Egypt ... – and whom he had seen, heard, known, found familiar in the full pulse, and passion, and proud glory of his youth: ... the proud, vacant, time-strange, and bewhiskered visages of [post-bellum Republican presidents] Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Hayes.

The first vote I ever cast for president,” my father [said] ... “I cast in 1872, in Baltimore, for that great man – that brave and noble soldier – U. S. Grant! And I have voted for every Republican nominee ever since.... [In 1893] the Democrats were in and we had soup kitchens. And, you can mark my words,” he howled, “you'll have them again before these next four years are over – ... before that fearful, that awful, that cruel, inhuman and bloodthirsty Monster [i.e., President Woodrow Wilson] who kept us out of war [from 1914 until 1917],” my father jeered derisively, “is done with you – for hell, ruin, misery, and damnation commence every time the Democrats get in. You can rest assured of that!” he said shortly, cleared his throat, wet his thumb, lunged forward violently and spat again.

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Barack Obama's Hidden Selves

Numerous categories of information and documents would have enabled the public to form a truer and more accurate assessment of the Democratic nominee, including:

1. Occidental College records -- Not released
2. Columbia College records -- Not released
3. Columbia undergraduate thesis  -- Not released
4. Harvard College records -- Not released
5. Selective Service registration -- Not released
6. Medical records -- Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- "Not available"
8. Law practice client list -- Not released
9. Certified Copy of original birth certificate -- Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published -- None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None
13. Baptism record -- Not released or "Not available"
14. Illinois State Senate records --"Not available"

15. US Senate record -- the most liberal by far.

CONFIRMED - Major News Networks Trick McCain, Treat Obama

A Center for Media and Public Affairs study, posted on the Internet by the Associated Press at 9:20PM EST on Friday night, Halloween (assuring a minimum of instareadership), proves what every professional journalist and/or principled blogger has been asserting for months: the major news networks have been tilting their election coverage against McCain and for Obama.

A recent survey of 2,011 people regarding 979 news major network items that appeared between August 23 and October 24 turned up the following:

ABC recorded 57 percent favorable comments toward the Democrats, and 42 percent positive for the Republicans. NBC had 56 percent positive for the Democrats, 16 percent for the Republicans. CBS had 73 percent positive (Obama), versus 31 percent (McCain). Hume's telecast [on Fox] had 39 percent favorable comments for McCain and 28 percent positive for the Democratic ticket.

It was the second study in two weeks to remark upon negative coverage for the McCain-Palin ticket. The Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded last week that McCain's coverage has been overwhelmingly negative since the conventions ended, while Obama's has been more mixed.

More: CMPA Press Release (Oct. 14), "Obama Leads The Media Race As Well"

The horror. The horror.

Rewind No Evil, Replay No Evil, Reject No Evil

* UPDATE (11/03) * Link to an audio file of a 1979 interview with Khalidi, with extensive commentary by Martin Kramer

In the closing days of the presidential election, the LA Times sits on 2003 video footage of Barack Obama at a public dinner honoring his longtime friend, staunch Palestinian nationalist Rashid Khalidi.  The Times culled quotes for an article earlier this year, but interest is rife to examine the evening's entire program (which included explicit endorsements of Palestinian terrorism).

Speaking in 2007 at Portland State University, without missing a beat Khalidi compared the politics of Fateh (i.e., Arafat's once-dominant PLO faction) to Chicago, Democratic Party, machine politics. Khalidi needed a frightening, American analogy to the PLO - to make vivid its corruption, patronage, and intimidation (which Khalidi saw firsthand as a PLO spokesman in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s). So he reached for how things are done in his - and Obama's - city. Describing Fateh, he said, would make your hair turn white.

What, then, about Obama's (and Khalidi's) career would make your hair turn white?

* * *

Meanwhile Israeli news networks, having broadcast excerpts of an interview with Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, are now refusing to air the bulk of their half-hour footage. A pariah to many Israelis, Amir says that he did not regret the murder and that he had more respect for Palestinian terrorists than he did for some Israelis.

What are these media people hiding? What - or Who - are they afraid of?

Gaddafi Endorses His Arab and Muslim Brother Obama For President Of Racist Dictatorship of Amrikia

The vague "respect" some people think the United States should seek from other peoples consists of unending self-abasement that accepts those people's lies, slander, half-truths, and sworn animosity:
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We still hope that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith ... and that he will change America from evil to good.

 
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That "ignorant" old lady at a McCain townhall meeting - who called Obama, with grave reservations, "Arab" - wasn't that far off. She sensed the winds blowing, in her own way.

A diligent media corps would press Obama to respond directly to Gaddafi's claims, including to Gaddafi's demagogic distortions of American society, and probe Obama's opinions on how world opinion like this affects his foreign policy views.

"Objective Journalism ... Is Stone Cold Dead"

Sacrificed on the altar of service to Barack Obama.... The AP, once the gold standard of unbiased “hard news,” is now just another voice in the Spin Room.... A new study by the Pew Research Center found that, while 71 percent of Obama’s recent media coverage has been “positive” or “neutral,” almost 60 percent of McCain’s coverage over the same period has been “decidedly negative.”....

My friends in the Partisan Press, your reputation has now fallen lower than both President Bush (25 percent) and the Democratic Congress (18 percent). Journalistic integrity now ranks along side communicable diseases and nuclear mishaps.

Obama will likely be the next president. He will use that power to do things both good and bad. But when Americans look for tough, honest journalists to challenge him, where will we find them?

Read all of Michael Graham's piece in the Boston Herald.

Another Person With Down Syndrome For McCain-Palin

I wasn't going to post this, except that an informal survey of online acquaintances turned up positive responses. Going for the sentimental (as opposed to jugular) vein doesn't do much for me. In this case, someone snapped this pic of me and my longtime friend, Will - yes, I consider him a friend - then posted it on his site with a snippy remark about Republicans and their intelligence.
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Hopefully, it speaks for itself: a guy living with an obvious "disability" who, to the best of his ability, puts his hands (and bumper stickers) in the air for whom he wants to be the next president. Why exactly Will likes McCain and not Obama, I'm not sure. The times we've talked about the bigger world, I didn't try to influence him. People who spend time with people with Down Syndrome, however, know how uncalculating, uncensored, and loyal such people are. It pissed me off that he tried to make a play off of Will's condition.

The pro-life shorthand to describe having someone like will in my life is that having Will in my life is a blessing, that it's a wonderful manifestation of God's love and omnipresence. I accept that. All the better that McCain's running mate has a child with Down Syndrome, too. Go, Will!

Bore, Baby, Bore!

First, a detailed summary of the high points of last night's second presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain:
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Everyone clear on those? Good.

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Second, a .pdf file of Frank Gaffney's prepared remarks from last night's other debate - the one worth paying attention to - between Gaffney, as President of the Center for Security Policy, and Suhail Khan, as Special Assistant for Policy to the Secretary of Transportation. They squared off on the subject of  Islamic sharia law's stealthy spread through American institutions and society.

The Thrilla From Wasilla, Chidin' Biden, Couldn't Steal The Show

If she'd been preparing for this debate for the past 18 months like the other three competitors, I'm sure Palin would have been not just passable, but formidable. Biden looks ready for the job on Day One without worries, she looks like she'd need a learning curve. She zinged Biden on his differences with Obama, but he also showed that in the past month he's worked at conforming his record and his person to Obama.

There was one moment when Palin could have rolled out her vision of the country and of governance - when asked how, if circumstances made her president, she would differentiate her administration from her predecessor's. Had she thought deeply about these matters, she would have turned a page for the  GOP - and the nation - by initiating an all-important dialogue about where this country needs to go, and where she, uniquely, can take it. She would have guaranteed national attention for herself now, through '12, and even later. It was a great moment, but she didn't make it her moment. A Bible-believing, prairie-fire populist - and moreover, one ready to refine the Bush Doctrine - would be champing at the bit to make history, not waiting for history to come around to her (again). Should McCain and she go down to defeat, she'll likely to go down in history as a respectable regional reformer.

Should McCain and Palin regain momentum and ultimately take this election - which tonight's performance keeps on the radar - the learning curve will continue in fullest force. For the moment, we can all breathe easy again and put the focus back on McCain and Obama where it belongs.

No knockout - Biden by unanimous decision. Narrowly.

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More thoughts:

She carried herself with stellar poise considering that, since declaring for national office, Democrats obtained and disclosed her social security number and home phone number [Update: her ph# is listed] and hacked into her personal email. Says one recap, she "has bark and bite."

How many times did he lie? The Mendacity of Joe B..

And what's with the winking into the camera? Once, yeah all right, but twice? Is this a GOP chick-pol's version of "swagger"? Yeah, that really assures me she's got what it takes - to talk herself out of a speeding ticket. Sure it jazzes me when conservative pols project strong gender differentiation, but I hope she doesn't make that her signature gesture. On the other hand, she shamed Ivy-trained and Beltway-bred feminists (as if they’re capable of shame) by landing several blows (often, if not always), digging in her heels when she couldn’t (and with a smile), and - something Hillary would have been loathe to do had she represented the Dems in this debate - standing by her man.

A Liberal Case For John "The Uniter" McCain

Long live the American Revolution!
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Here we have a man (Obama) who is more liberal than Hillary running for the most powerful position in the world. Imagine that! The democrats finally managed to find someone more liberal than Hillary Clinton. You have Democrats who actually believe Obama can unite, and here we have our very own man like McCain who has a 2006 ACU Rating of 65%. McCain's the uniter. Obama isn't going to unite the American people with his liberal rating of 92%! DO the math. Again, you have McCain with a 65% ACU rating and, on the other hand, you have Obama with a 92% liberal rating. Do you really think people might believe Obama will be more of a uniter -- moreso than John McCain? I don't think so, but there will be some who might believe that with their fuzzy math, and it is up to us to get that truth out there. The truth is this......the way left liberal Obama has no record of UNITY. He is an attorney and a lecturer who hasn't even finished his junior status as Senator for Illinois. On the other hand, McCain the real uniter is the one who has a 65% rating which is more closely aligned to the center.

McCain Speaks With LGBT Media

Here's a lengthy, detailed interview of McCain by the Washington Blade.

Q: Why doesn't Obama sit down for a lengthy discussion with socially conservative, even "anti-gay," opinion journals?
A: Because McCain is the moderate in this election.

Obama's "Post-Partisanship" Is As Clear As The Raised Middle Finger In Your Face

The number of middle fingers in a "progressive" crowd is directly proportional to the number of Ph.D.s in a ten-block radius.

Get Ready For The First Presidential Debate

with Vodkapundit and Right Wing Nuthouse on Blog Talk Radio. (Click here for their program.) Each has been following for over a year now at the micro-level the presidential campaigns, and is keyed in on what Obama and McCain bring to Friday's first face-to-face meeting.

One surprising topic: What if the election turns out a 269-269 electoral tie? Some states all0w split-delgate (not winner-take-all) electoral voting.

The only way to deal with the mainstream media is to shove it right back in their faces.... If the time is right for revolution against the mainstream media, it's right now.
- Vodkapundit

A Worldview Without Zionism

Senator Obama's political coming-of-age memoir, The Audacity of  Hope, contains not one mention of the State of Israel, reports Gay Patriot. Who knew that the candidate of Hope and Change is equally the candidate of Imagination?

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too....

Sandra Does Sarah

* Updated *

You can put lipstick, pearls, and even a cocktail dress on a self-pitying, rage-filled, liberal snob of a Jewish dyke, but it's still a self-pitying, rage-filled, liberal snob of a Jewish dyke.

Sandra Bernhard on Sarah Palin:

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Not included in the video: Bernhard's boast that Palin, in New York, would be gang-raped by blacks. The threat (or, more perversely, the taunt) of rape to keep disagreeable women in their place. Original.

Later Bernhard explains: [The gang rape comment] is part of a much larger, nuanced, and yes, provocative (that's what I do) piece from my show about racism, freedom, women's rights and the extreme views of Governor Sarah Palin, a woman who doesn't believe that other women should have the right to choose, Bernhard told the Daily News today.

Women deserve better, she continued. I certainly wish Governor Palin no harm. I'd just like her to explain to me how she can hold such outrageous views - and then go back to Alaska.

[Update: Women do deserve better - better than you, that is. S.E. Cupp replies in the Daily News.]

Palin's "extreme" and "outrageous" views are hers alone and she owns them. Her influence with them as vice-president would be slight, and even as president, while real, would be far from absolute. One aspect which Bernhard ignores, as do most pro-choice advocates, is that to people who are pro-life, any abortion is extreme.  (And to people of mixed opinion, either extreme is dispiriting to listen to for very long.) If Bernhard were serious about wanting an explanation from Palin, she would ask politely but firmly, then listen. She would not turn her comedienne's stage into a bully pulpit. Further, it's not as if explanations of pro-life positions aren't readily available. It's just that seeking them out would mean Bernhard would have to do some legwork to understand how somebody who disagrees with her thinks.

Bernhard's claim that she wishes Palin no harm is highly disingenuous. Of course she wants Palin "harmed": humiliated (which all threats of rape are - humiliations - in this case even more so because it's public) as a preliminary step to being politically diminished, neutralized, and - if possible - banished from the national stage. As for physical harm, what Bernhard means is, I wish that Palin comes to no physical harm as a direct result of my comedy routine. Shit, then I'd be in real trouble!

That trope of  criminally rebellious black men (or boys) being Bernhard's "brothers" - as rapists-on-call or as a tangental, amorphous punishing force or as some kind of Black Avenging Angels - is contemptible. It's worn-out "black Orpheus" or "white Negro" attitudes that poisoned the Western intellectual well the moment Sartre and Mailer poured them in over 50 years ago. In short, Sandra Bernhard needs to grow up. Finding her own power will have little to do with put-downs that trickle down from "Fight The Power." But if she insists on buying in to the myth of demonic, black moral and sexual potency (or supremacy), then emptor caveat: Give V.S. Naipaul's Guerillas a go before going any further, girl.

Oh, and Governor Palin went back to Alaska because that's where her home, her job, and her family are. Of course, I realize that what Bernhard means is Get the hell away from New York!

This is timely, Gentle Reader. At stake right now is that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, is insisting on representing America, alongside certain New York Jews and in solidarity with the State of Israel, to castigate the Islamic Republic of Iran for its nuclear, jihadist, and genocidal ambitions. So don't let any media hype surrounding Sandra Bernhard, nor any other snobby, liberal Jews in New York, divert you from what Governor Sarah Palin, one righteous gentile, is trying to do.
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Wasilla Remembers Sarah

* Welcome, Conservative Grapevine and Little Green Football readers! *

Yesterday evening I had a remarkable encounter with a man here in California (let's call him “Hank”) who had been a resident of Wasilla, Alaska during the years when Sarah Palin served as city councilwoman and then mayor. He and I chatted for half an hour, completely off the cuff. More than most mainstream media stories about her life and career, Hank's memories, impressions, and opinions – of Wasilla as much, actually, as of Sarah Palin – are indeed a breath of fresh air. They lend credence to the persona that the McCain-Palin campaign is projecting: a frontier, hockey mom with “a servant's heart.”

First, Hank said that most Americans will find it difficult to understand many particulars of Alaska small-town life. Wasilla is small by head count, but it's spread over a wide area with many miles between it and the nearest cities. Yes, it has “sprawl,” but growth merely peppers (not plasters) its way toward adjacent boroughs. (“Boroughs”: the category for unincorporated land outside the city proper.) Out there neighbors often live at a distance from each other, but these individuals also learn to make do with each other -- and especially with nature -- out of non-negotiable need, not choice.

Hank never mentioned “environmentalism” or “hunting,” but instead spoke of “game management.” Area game (or, if you prefer, wildlife) seems to coexist with the citizenry in a pragmatic, managed equilibrium. Certain technology, he said, tracks the number of moose or fish that pass through certain areas. The environs can only support so many number of this or that animal, so often it's a good (and prudent) thing that hunters and fishers are issued more licenses, and get out and bring in big catches. Never forget that many Alaskans count on outdoor kills for basic sustenance. This includes roadkill – when a big animal goes down on a road or highway, a local church will receive a call and then send out members to haul and properly strip the carcass. This has to do with sustenance and community service, not with sport and spoils. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.

This also has to do, as Hank described it, with a “pay-as-you-go” way of life. Since there are few state taxes, Alaska government remains small and usually in the background, even if services are scarcer and more expensive. For example, the state university is relatively expensive as state universities go, but that's because only students pay in to it. More bureaucratized states like California and New York fund their state universities by taxing the entire populace. Hank also wanted me to note that there's a fair amount of home schooling in Alaska. (I have to add, the tenor of these remarks reminded me of an old Dinesh D'Souza anecdote: Ronald Reagan, back in the 80s, received D'Souza as a guest at the White House. Reagan pointed out the window to a large structure, not too far off. “You see that building?” he asked. “Yes.” “That's the Department of Education. Do you know what they do over there? “No,” D'Souza acknowledged, "I don't." “Neither do I,” Reagan declared.)

Back in Wasilla, during Palin's time in office an effort took hold to incorporate his outlying borough, but Hank was wary because he knew that the city wouldn't be able right away to keep up roads and provide fire department services as he'd been used to. It was a trade-off, but one brokered in open (if close) quarters. Just as former Alaska senator, Democrat Mike Gravel recently said, Hank said he didn't always agree with her decisions, but he tended to respect them. He said she always carried herself confidently, as when she had Wasilla's chief of police replaced.

In this and other ways, Hank said, he formed over the years strong, up-close impressions of Sarah (whom he always referred to as “Sarah”). As Sarah gave birth to new children, the town paper ran items about them. She and her husband gave them funny, marvelous names – “Piper,” he explained, is named after the piper cub airplane (a fixture in long-distance Alaskan transportation). Sarah typically attended Wasilla's high school's graduation ceremonies, including his own child's graduation. Her mayor's office was “a shack.” When years later she put a former governor's plane on eBay, he said it didn't surprise him one bit. Did Hank watch her recent vice-presidential nomination acceptance speech? “It was 100% her,” he said, without hesitation nor undue emphasis.

Now that I think about it, I didn't even ask Hank whether he's registered to vote with any party, nor whether he is planning to vote for McCain-Palin in November. It doesn't much matter, since his opinions and input regarding Sarah Palin are based mostly on her no-nonsense fulfillment of two non-partisan offices. What a world of difference this is from the dozens, even hundreds of liberal journalists and Democratic operatives who – like Kremlin commissars dispatched to quell defiant Soviet republics – have descended upon Alaska to try to destroy, by any means necessary, the hard-earned, hard-nosed reputation of America's most popular vice-presidential nominee, the woman who will forever be remembered by her former municipal constituents as “Sarah.”

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Obamafada Watch

* Update * WSJ op-ed, "Obama is Stoking Racial Antagonism"

* 2d Update * The native ambition and aspiration of men, even though they be black, backward, and ungraceful, must not lightly be dealt with. To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires; to flout their striving idly is to harvest a brutish crime and shameless lethargy in our very laps.
- W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Is a litmus test whether one is racist or not whether one votes for Barack Obama or not? What are the burdens those of us will bear, we who freely and carefully decide that John McCain is the better man to be president?

Philly print columnist Fatimah Ali (who is black) sees "race war" already here, after saying two weeks ago that race war would arrive on the heels of a McCain-Palin victory: If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!... But when Obama wins the White House, we may just see a revolution....

Harvard law prof Randall Kennedy (who is black) asks "What If [Obama loses?]" and answers "bitter disappointment" and "stark rage" for blacks at large, plus "feelings of dejection, anger and resentment" for himself.

Occasional commenters wax incendiary about race riots. Mostly, though, look for more obfuscations -- whether aggressive (like Ali's) or laconic (like Kennedy's) -- which obscure the race-, class-,  and religion-warriors who've hitched themselves to Obama's bandwagon.

So, we're supposed to believe that an Obama defeat -- after what will be 20 months of steady public exposure to and evaluation of  his (brand) name -- would be an outrage comparable to the assassination of MLK or the acquittal of certain LA policemen? Last month Dennis Prager (who is Jewish) recommended to shoot-to-injure graffiti taggers. How about against Obamafada taggers, vandals, rioters?

Pity any misguided blacks (and others) who might take to the streets (or worse) on Nov. 5. Pity anyone who tries to wrest guilt-concessions from mainstream Americans over this subject -- before, during, or after the election. Pity anyone who falls for it.

A Tale Of Two Standards In Presidential Politics

Summarized by Victor Hanson in "Target Palin":

The Geraldine Ferraro Democratic Vice Presidential nominee appointment was an inspired stroke of genius that advanced the cause of feminism; Palin’s was tawdry tokenism.

Edwards was a social reformer brought down by the tabloids; Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is white trash and fair game.

Insulting “small town mayors” and “good looking” women is funny; suggesting that “community organizing” is often a farce is a felony.

Obama’s violation of drug laws with a “little blow” was youthful exuberance; Palin’s husband’s DUI was more proof of a working-class messy family.

Joe Biden bravely continued as Senator after the tragic death of his wife and daughter left his injured young sons with a single parent; Sarah Palin selfishly shorted her children by running for VP and endangered her infants by flying while pregnant.

Criticizing Clinton’s engaging in sex in the oval office and lying about it to the American people were once “the politics of personal destruction”; lying that Sarah Palin might not have been the mother of her 5th child is the mere overreach of the blogs caused by the improper vetting of the McCain campaign.

This all reminds me of the 2000 campaign when the media beat the dead-horse of Bush (Yale BA, Harvard MBA) as the lousy, lazy C-student, when, in fact, Al Gore’s undergraduate record at Harvard was full of C’s, F’s at Vanderbilt Divinity School (dropped out), and C’s at Vanderbilt Law School (dropped out). The point is not that quitting professional schools is necessarily a sign of anything, but rather once again that the media is shown to be bending and inventing facts for their higher purposes of liberal utopianism— a continuation of some half a century when we remember the “dumb” Ike floundering before the  “brilliant” and “witty” Adlai Stevenson (who flunked out of Harvard Law School, a fact hidden from the public for decades.)

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Live-Blogging McCain's Acceptance Speech

Per C-Span's broadcast:

7:05 PM - The crowd bops and hops to the Stray Cats, chomping, bustling, waiting...

7:08  - The biographical slide show is underway. Crowd hushes.

7:10 - The slide show is low on politics, high on character. His grandfather's and father's extraordinary Naval records ... McCain's early record, dating back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and earlier (Who hears about this in the MSM? Where? When? If it were up to the MSM, lives like McCain's would permanently cast down the MSM memory hole.)

7:12 - More slide show, connects POW years to his release, entrance into politics. Almost seamlessly. It's as if he's lived three lives, not just one.

7:16 - Enter the candidate. Cool and measured. The previous heavyweights on previous days revved up and worked the crowd - Romney, Giuliani, Palin. McCain is on even keel throughout. Note the yellow necktie - bright, optimistic, a little flair. Silverhaired goldenboy.

7:22 - A warrior bearing olive branches: acknowledges Obama's achievement ... welcomes to work with all patriotic Americans.

7:25 - Crowd chants USA! USA!  - pent-up emotions overflowing.... McCain doesn't blink, doesn't get sidetracked, doesn't let it go to his head.

7:28 - Graciously thanks convention for welcoming Sarah Palin yesterday - second big applause line.  McCain the gentleman-statesman: Palin his "partner" to govern ... he wants to "introduce" her to Washington.... This is how one generation passes a torch to another. Barack Obama couldn't have gotten as practical a blessing from Ted Kennedy or Robert Byrd.

7:32 - Populism, populism, populism.  Smaller government.

7:38 - He names names: hard-working, ordinary individual Americans. Nothing fancy, but that's the point. Including "the family of Matthew Stanley of Wolfboro, New Hampshire, who died serving our country in Iraq. I wear his bracelet and think of him every day."

7:42 - "Education is the civil rights issue of this Century." A talking point he made verbatim at his Saddleback appearance. If the MSM were committed, objectively, to the well-being of historically deprived communities - not simply to the Obama star-narrative - there'd be news profiles, investigative reports on this. It would be front and center.

7:48 - Energy here at home.

7:51 - Democrats, read his lips: "I hate war. It is terrible beyond imagination."

7:54 - The understatement of his life: "Long ago, something unusual happened to me that taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. I was blessed by misfortune."

7:59 - The run-up to the peroration. This stuff is too good to make up: "I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's."

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My feed got choppy, so here's the rest, cribbed from Yid With Lid. It was over the top, McCain didn't ramp it up, the crowd simply ran with it. It's all about...  humble greatness:

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.

I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your President. I'm going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I'm an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me.

Fight for what's right for our country.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children's future.

Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God Bless you.

Things To Do In Denver When You're A Dead Jihadist

A Canadian Muslim ... having entered the country illegally ... is found dead in a Denver hotel room ... with a pound of cyanide crystals ... two weeks before the Democratic National Convention.

More on this disturbing, almost Manchurian, story - so far, virtually ignored by the MSM - here and here.

Joe Lieberman - The Last Vestige of Liberal Manhood in the U.S. Senate

While the media fans tensions over Jesse Jackson's subpar "cut [Obama's] nuts off" comment, here's footage of the last man standing among Democratic Senators. Joe Lieberman lays out the case for investigating, at the highest levels of government, enemy, jihadist Muslim cells active within the United States. The facts speak for themselves: in our time Islamic terror is "home grown," it is often engineered by fanatics who enjoy citizenship of the countries they seek to terrorize and destabilize, it is spreading rapidly in American prisons, and UK intelligence services have discovered over 200 such cells in their country. Joe tells the truth about the times we live in. He'd make a great vice president.

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Here's the trailer from an "oppo" documentary being made by Stalinist Democrats who want to complete the purge of Senator Lieberman -- an otherwise liberal legislator -- strictly because he is committed to a strong military offensive strategy in Iraq, against Iran, against Hamas, and wherever else it may be necessary:

Lieberman endorses John McCain for president:

Race Matters

Like W.E.B. DuBois, Barack Obama Is Either A Genius Or A Fool

For those of us who oppose Senator Obama for president, his candidacy is a curious -- and absolutely necessary -- study. The very reasons why enthusiasts welcome and worship him are why the rest of us are wary and worried: opposition to maintaining the Iraq front against Islamic terror ... a resume reeking of Rules for Radicals Saul Alinsky (by whose tactics Obama seeks to reframe issues in terms of community "empowerment") ... and that "breath of fresh air" facade, behind which we skeptics sense, blowin' in Obama's wind, storms of soft jihad.

What to do?

Classical liberals and committed conservatives alike must plot Illinois's ambitious junior senator on a moral grid in the way he so richly deserves. This moral grid is formed by two axes, "Hope and Hype" and "Humility and Hubris," strains of which already reveal themselves. For my part, I've made sure to read his two memoirs, the aw-shucks Audacity of Hope and the unevenly introspective Dreams From My Father. Next I read Shelby Steele's A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win. Recently I picked up David Mendell's Obama: From Promise to Power. Elegaic and informative, it is chock full of first-hand anecdotes (including access to all of Obama's men, and his woman) and offers occasional glimpses of his shortcomings and vulnerabilities.

Now on my plate is to discern just whose cloth Obama cuts himself from, including which swaths and what size. African-American history is the best place to start, I figure, since that's his primary identity. I've started with legendary NAACP-founder and Communist propagandist, W.E.B. DuBois. Like Obama, DuBois was partly of white ancestry but never shied from identifying with African-American community. Like Obama, DuBois completed (with distinction) graduate work at Harvard, which gained him immediate notoreity. Like Obama, DuBois was an educator as well as a political organizer.

Also like Obama -- such is the case his opponents seek to compile -- DuBois lent his name and his mind to the propagation of America's reigning sworn enemy. In DuBois's time that was Soviet Communism, and in ours imperial Islamic jihad. Leaving a finer comparison and contrast of the two men for another day (e.g., DuBois entered the political fray during the Jim Crow era, when lynching was rampant; Obama has done so in the post-Civil Rights era, when black-on-black crime is rampant), here's a brief excerpt of a notable passage from DuBois's Autobiography (aptly subtitled, "A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life..."). One of DuBois's reflections on turning 25, or something like it, has no doubt been thought by you know who:

I rejoice as a strong man to win a race, and I am strong -- is it egotism -- is it assurance -- or is it the silent call of the world spirit that makes me feel that I am royal and that beneath my sceptre a world of kings shall bow. The hot dark blood of a black forefather is beating at my heart, and I know that I am either a genius or a fool.

Did I say that Barack Obama is either a genius or a fool? What I meant to say -- to prudently, shrewdly not misunderestimate him -- is that Barack Obama may be both a genius and a fool.

Ed Koch - Liberal With Sanity

Found at Chaim's blog, Freedom's Cost:

Today, according to the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, “71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as President, an all-time high in polling.” His position can be compared with that of Harry Truman who left Washington unpopular and alone in 1953. Today, with the passage of time, most historians and certainly the American people, see Truman in a different light, primarily for his willingness to stand firm against Soviet aggression, whether against Greece or South Korea, and proclaim the Truman Doctrine, effectively defending the free world from Soviet efforts to expand their hegemony. Like Truman, George W. Bush, in my view, will be seen as one of the few world leaders who recognized the danger of Islamic terrorism and was willing with Tony Blair to stand up to it and not capitulate.
-- Ed Koch

Barack Obama Can Kiss My Black Assassin

*Update (04/24)*: The video (now removed) was shot as a close-up of a very young black boy who for 8 minutes demanded the assassination of President Bush and boasted that he would do it. He also urged the election of Barack Obama.

Here's what happens when niggaz always be callin' niggaz "niggaz":
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Ain't that right, nigga? (Found here.)

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Sen. Obama famously said, The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

The Senator scores points for calling attention to American racism, but loses points for euphemisms that call for "understanding its roots." Seething resentments like the ones on brazen display (above) are squarely the result of the deliberate, demagogic and/or psychotic cultural warfare that stamps our "post-Civil Rights" era. Those guilty of waging this cultural warfare run the social, economic, and racial gamut from from the underclass to the governing class, and every skin color. It's not "a black thang," so exceptionally race-conscious people wouldn't understand....

By any reasonable application of federal statute that child is a criminal. According to 18 USC Sec. 871:

....Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

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What kind of people call black people "nigger" most often? Black people, that's who. What kind of people maim, cripple, rape, and murder black people most often -- in America and in Africa? Black people, that's who. According to a 2007 Department of Justice report, for example, Among single victim-single offender homicides, about 93 percent of black victims were murdered by black offenders.  About 77 percent of black homicide victims were killed with a firearm. What U.S. president saw American governmental aid to Africa triple under his watch? George W. Bush, that's who.

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"Buffalo soldiers" (below) are worth more than "buffalo niggers" like that wannabee assassin (above) any day. Come on, people! Shall we overcome that?

One Lifetime Feminist Writer To Another

I will honor and "hear" you even if -- especially if -- we disagree on particular subjects. You believe that Barack Obama can somehow save our country. You are moved by his oratory and character. I am bowed beneath the weight of tribal sorrows and fear for our country and our world no matter who becomes the next American President.

Read the rest of Phyllis Chesler's open letter to Alice Walker (where you can follow the links to Alice's original letter).

It Takes One To Know One

Who's a monster?
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Well, well. The true face of Obama foreign policy brain trust shows itself.

First thought: If only all partisan liberals took responsibility for their attitudes and actions in a like manner.

Second thought: It's more damage control than responsibility, however. She's a well-heeled intellectual, ideas are her currency. She doesn't need to be officially on board to still influence Obama's foreign policy or his other advisers.

Last year Men's Vogue fawned over the (well-stiletto-heeled) "Genocide Chick" (click for pic).

The Machine Beat The Mantra

What a night. She did what she had to do. So did McCain. It's so far from over.

The day after, now, "independents are the mother's milk of politics."

William F. Buckley, Jr. vs. Gore Vidal: "It Is Really Unprofitable To Talk About Camelot, Since We Don't Live In Camelot, But In The Good Old U. S. A."

The late William F. Buckley, Jr. weighs in on the 1968 presidential election, along with Gore Vidal.

Buckley: [The next president of the United States] shouldn't be too naive. For instance, when the president of the Soviet Union informs him that the Communists desire world peace, the next president would ideally tell him to cut the horse feathers. He shouldn't crave the idolatry of world opinion. For instance, when criticized by the United Nations for taking a position he feels he needs to take in the best interests of his country, he should feel free quite ostentatiously to turn off the national earphone.
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Note Vidal, with calumnious alarm -- expectorated drippings whence waft a whiff of the nauseous mal de vivre Jean-Paul Sartre cooked up -- referring to the American Empire and to the race war, intoning that the 37th president of the United States could very well be the last president. Picture yourself in the 1960s. Militantly touting its cult of "social change," the Left has taken to the streets, it conspires and boasts of revolution, its most ruthless individuals (a Communist and a Palestinian) assassinate, first, a president, then a major presidential candidate -- and that "malevolent fantasist" Vidal suggests that fascism  is just around the corner. ("Malevolent fantasist," a phrase borrowed from Roger Kimball's farewell to Buckley.)

It may have been. Yet let us recall, Gentle Reader, that whatever be the hard, sometimes bitter (and, yes, sometimes bloody) costs of preserving the political order, upheavals threatening that order come typically from the Left, sometimes with popular approval. During the Roman Republic's shaky final decades Caesar decided early on that the Populares, not the Optimates, party would best translate his indecipherable genius into real power. In a later era Bonaparte and Hitler each enjoyed, for dreadful seasons, enormous popularity when they provided order where the institutions that had guaranteed order had collapsed. Truly there is more to be said on the subject -- yet Vidal, for his seemingly moderate erudition and insight, agitates more than penetrates the subject. His final phrases identify a generalized, troubled sentiment (a queasiness, if not a nausea) but they do not indicate an issuance from that sentiment. "Law and Order" is strong medicine, mind you, strong for good reason and to good ends.
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In this second video Vidal (below), an American blue-blood just as much as Buckley, tosses out more dour, veiled threats, perceiving himself no doubt as some kind of tribune, some kind of messenger: Very soon the poor, black and white in alliance with the young, are going to challenge the old order, and if Nixon does not respond with intelligence and with compassion, then there will be such revolution in these United States as has never been before.... Not all of the police and national guards combined will be able to withstand the eruption of those without hope or means of redress save through violence.

 

Nader '08: Obama Not Left Enough

The left has its complaints, too, against Barack Obama. in this clip (comparatively) late-entry candidate Nader accuses him of "self-censuring" and "protective imitation."

Count on leftists like Amy Goodman and Ralph Nader -- two of the cootiest "old coots" around -- to tug and even claw at Obama as he continues to vie for the presidency.

Obamamania! ... Obamamania?

Rick Moran's long post is a good one, rounding up even liberal complaints about the quasi-religious, at a bare minimum uncritical, fervor extended toward the candidate.

The Hillary Obamistas Know

Posted today by Atlanta, GA-based Obama backer Lawrence Muhammad on the "Community Blogs" page of Barack Obama's campaign site:
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TOP 10 CLINTON CAMPAIGN FOUL UPS

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1. HILLARY STAFF MEMBER RESIGNS DUE TO FALSE EMAIL ABOUT OBAMA BEING MUSLIM CIRCULATED

2. HILLARY SENIOR CAMPAIGN ADVISOR RESIGNS DUE TO "SLIP" OF REFERENCE TO OBAMA'S YOUTH DRUG USE

3. HILLARY SAYS JOHNSON SHOULD BE MORE CREDITED WITH CIVIL RIGHTS LAW THAN MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

4. BILL CLINTON CALLS OBAMA CAMPAIGN A "FAIRY TALE"

5. HILLARY MAJOR SUPPORTER BOB JOHNSON APOLOGIZES FOR REFERENCE BARACK DRUG USE

6. HILLARY RUNS OUT OF MONEY MUST LOAN CAMPAIGN 5 MILLION DOLLARS

7. HILLARY CAMPAIGN MANAGER QUITS

8. HILLARY DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER QUITS

9. HILLARY LOSES DELEGATE LEAD, POPULAR VOTE AND STATE WINS COUNT

10. HILLARY RUNS NEGATIVE AD AGAINST OBAMA

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As opposed to the Hillary Clintonistas know.

We Don't Want Bill Either

Ms. Rodham Clinton's 2008 election troubles boil down to one word: Bill.

Many voters are already hip to him being her ticket to power. Others are wary of the complications inherent in installing a two-term ex-president in the White House, which could be worse than defying the 22nd Amendment. Their Her election would create a climate where the scope of executive authority could be blurred beyond proper and effective discernment. This would involve not just any ex-president but one who, rara avis, has been tried on two out of four counts of impeachment lodged against him.

Ms. Rodham Clinton frequently insists she's ready to lead "on Day One." Yet when she says that what many voters hear is Day 2923 -- the first day of a third-term of a Clinton (co-)presidency. During another era, when the American people voted for president during an extraordinary wartime election, at most only 46% rejected Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt when they he vied for unprecedented terms.

So far -- counting all the Republican and the Obama and other Democratic votes -- 70% of presidential primary voters are saying, We Don't Want Bill Either. Sound familiar? It should.

(Republican campaign button, 1930s or 1940s; image found in Campaigning for President)

How To Describe An Obama Enthusiast?

I know one self-described Obamista
A deadhead for Obama is an Obamahead
A robotic platitude spewer would be an Obamotron

What else?